Despite the many contrarians and detractors that initially wrote them off for inspiring the djent movement, Periphery have become an institution in progressive metal as they approach the release of their fifth full-length album Periphery III: Select Difficulty. Each album so far has rocked rotation in their respective years of release, with last year’s double album Juggernaut taking up two spots on our year-end list of favorites. Admittedly though, despite the fandom around these parts, Heavy Blog staff approached Select Difficulty with a bit of apprehension; after dropping two full-lengths, are we ready for new material from Periphery, or would they be overstaying their welcome? Believe it or not, between the band’s six songwriters, there’s plenty of good ideas knocking around a year later. In fact, Select Difficulty may be the group’s best collection of songs since their self-titled debut.

About a year ago Frameworks received a (well deserved) chance to earn some recognition on a much larger scale. They were invited to open for legendary melodic hardcore act Modern Life Is War, as well as Geoff Rickley of Thursday’s emoviolence project United Nations. In a lineup so stacked, it should…

I have an admittedly-odd history with metal. Like most of us, I was introduced to the genre by someone a little older than myself when I was a wee lad in the 6th grade. Back then, most of what I listened to was a combination of what my dad likes…

It’s been well documented how much I love hardcore music. It’s definitely become one of my favorite genres of music, especially over the last year. There’s been so many great releases that it’s really been hard to keep up, and today, I add another album to that long list of…

Screamo is a fickle mistress. In all facets it is beautiful, soul crushing music performed with all the heart anyone can muster. However, almost always it is a genre where emotion runs high in the music. And, perhaps, this is why many screamo bands quit just as they begin to…

A big part of this premiering gig that I’m fortunate enough to have is that I always take recommendations every day. I get emails all the time asking us to premiere stuff, or at least to listen to stuff, and I normally find a lot of stuff that I enjoy.…